and then the weekend

It's been pretty busy time towards the end of last week... Besides the postdoc dinner on Wednesday, Daniel and I hosted a game night Thursday night with a bunch of other people from the Haifa English Speakers facebook group. I was a bit unsure if it'd go well, since people didn't rsvp until fairly last minute and also showed up later. (Another similarity between Jewish and Chinese culture--the so-called "Asian time"--expecting people to show up 30 minutes later than planned--applies in Israel as well.) But game night was in the end quite fun! Apparently, I had more fun than Daniel did...even though he's the one who won Settlers. My team kicked his team's butts in Taboo though, probably given that his team consisted of a cross-cultural Israeli, a Belgium, and...Daniel, the consummate American. I had to tell him to not even try to get his team to guess "The Stetsons."

Sadly, things got a little dicey for Declan's and my health as the weekend (Friday and Saturday here) approached. Maybe it's one of the game night attendees' toddler chewing and drooling over Declan's toys, maybe it's one of the postdocs' baby that was having a fever for several days while hanging out with us, maybe it's the cats at the postdoc's home that basically shut down my respiratory system by the end of our lunch visit. One of these reasons caused me to stay in bed for most of the weekend sneezing and trying to get enough air through my incredibly congested sinus. I think I had a bit of fever as well. Meanwhile, Declan now officially has the croup after a few days of my thinking it was just a minor cold. Now I really felt bad for not being more sympathetic to his complete preference for me over the babysitter this morning. The babysitter and I ended up hanging out together with Declan after he got really worked up crying while I stayed in the other room, hoping to "train" him not to be so physically attached to me. Eventually, Declan developed a seal bark-cough and started wheezing and having trouble telling stories while trying to breath. This was about an hour after I gave up trying to study Hebrew today and just hung out with him, so it's a really good thing I didn't allow him to cry for longer before I changed today's plans.

Now I'm making turkey broth with vegetables on the stove, and hopefully that will help Declan's vocal cords and sinus feel better. Sigh. I should be more thankful during the times when everyone's just fine and healthy.